It is unavoidable that during the life of the bridge structures, especially those that are exposed to the commensurate traffic load, damages occur in the area of the bearings between the pier and the superstructure. These damages can manifest themselves in various ways. For example, the PTFE (polytetrafluoroethylene) disks of the slide bearings can be squeezed out or breaks can occur in roller bearings. In such cases of damage at least parts of the bearing must be replaced. For this purpose, it is necessary, at times even under full traffic load, to lift the superstructure at certain points on the individual bearing over the corresponding pier, to remove the damaged bearing or the corresponding bearing parts and replace them with new bearing parts or a completely new bearing. Lifting of the superstructure over a pier takes place by use of hydraulic lifting cylinders, which must be mounted so that the forces necessary for lifting the superstructure are introduced, on the one hand, into the superstructure and, on the other hand, into the pier, and to be able to be absorbed by these parts without danger of destruction. The lifting cylinders must be placed relative to the superstructure so that they are under the longitudinal web and under the crossbeam. This generally presents no difficulties, since the longitudinal beam and crossbeam in each case project out farther relative to a pier, so that a point of application for lifting the superstructure can easily be found. However, as a mounting surface for the lifting cylinders the pier contact surface presents difficulties, especially if a bearing of a large contour, relative to the pier contact surface, must be repaired. Then it is often not possible to place on the pier contact surface all the lifting cylinders required to lift the superstructure in the area of a pier. In such a case, there is nothing left to do but to mount on the pier a very expensive cantilever in the area of the pier contact surface, as it were, to enlarge the pier contact surface and to place the lifting cylinders here. Use of such cantilevers is very expensive and requires long assembly times, since a major part of the forces required for lifting the superstructure must be introduced in the pier by the cantilever. Known replacement by use of such cantilevers is particulary difficult on high piers and in some cases can hardly be performed or only at immense cost. In some cases of use, it would indeed be possible to place the lifting cylinders for lifting the superstructure to the pier contact surface, but then these lifting cylinders are so close to one another that removal of the parts of the old bearing, especially of the slide plate is not possible, since the distance between the lifting cylinders is smaller than the width of the slide plate.